There’s a new kid on the block in your AdWords account – it’s a lean, mean, fighting machine and it’s on your team. Treat it with respect and it’ll deliver results for you.

What is Remarketing?

Remarketing is a new weapon in the Google Adwords advertiser’s arsenal and one that you really should consider using.

The premise is that if a visitor comes to your site, but doesn’t purchase, sign up or perform whatever is considered a conversion, then Google will start to re-show them your ads, wherever they are on the Google network, until they convert.

How does it work?

First of all, you need to create set of Javascript remarketing tags in your AdWords account. One tag goes on every page, for example, and the other goes on your conversion pages. Every time a customer visits one of your pages they will be tagged, whether they came through Adwords or not.

In this example, you’ll now have two audiences; ‘visitors’ and ‘converters’. You can now show ads across the Content Network to a specific audience or create a custom combination – a group of visitors that includes everyone who visited the site, but excludes those that contacted you or bought something, for example.

This group becomes your market for an audience targeted content campaign. Upload a mixture of text and display ads to keep your brand front-of-mind, positioning you firmly when the buying decision is made.

Important point though – ads in your campaign will target the audience, not the content they are reading. This also means that you can understand where your audience lives on the web and use that data in a separate Content campaign to raise the profile of your brand and drive new visitors to your site.

What’s the thinking behind it?

The reasoning here is that, especially if you are selling items or services with a longer buying cycle, you’ll benefit from reminding them of your brand, product or service. For instance, if you are selling a high ticket product or service or a long term commitment, they may take a while to actually decide. Remarketing ads help to positively influence the choice between you and your competitors.

Does It Work?

Yes. We’ve been running remarketing campaigns for a number of our clients’ campaigns with some great display ads. Early stats show the cost per conversion to be 35% less than the account average and conversion rates 100% higher.